How to eat six times a day — and still lose up to ten pounds in one month. A change-your-life meal plan from diet coach and best-selling author Jorge Cruise.

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When you're dieting seriously, do you skip meals? If so, stop right now! You may find this surprising, but the best way to slim down is to eat more often. The key is timing: I've discovered that feeding your body every three hours can help you lose big.

Here's how it works: Whenever your meals are more than three hours apart, your body goes into a state of mini-famine and preserves the most calorie-rich part of your body -- fat. But the body usually burns fat to get energy, so now it has to burn precious lean muscle instead. The end result: The jiggle stays, and your muscles go.

On my diet, you'll feed your body six times a day at three-hour intervals: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, dessert. To kick-start your metabolism, be sure to eat breakfast within an hour of rising.

A sample day: You wake up at 6 a.m., grab breakfast at 7 a.m., snack at 10 a.m., start lunch at 1 p.m., snack again at 4 p.m. and then sit down to dinner at 7 p.m. Have dessert three hours later -- or right away if you're going to bed early. In total, you'll take in about 400 calories at each meal, 100 calories at snack time, and 50 calories for dessert. Don't worry if a meal starts 15 minutes later than it should. Your body's mini-famine alarm won't go off right away.

Afraid that you'll end up consuming more because you're eating so often? That couldn't be further from the truth. When you consistently feed your body, you keep blood sugar levels stable, which helps suppress your appetite.

But you still need to eat the right foods in the right portions. To make it easy, I've created this simple-to-follow meal plan. Stick with it for a month (repeat the plan after you complete Weeks 1 and 2) and you could shed 10 pounds, including some water weight. Don't forget: Drink lots of H2O and take a multivitamin daily.

Read the June 2006 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine to find Jorge's Week 1 meal plan and recipes, and find his Week 2 plan and recipes only on GoodHousekeeping.com!